Birth of an actor

"In terms of lines and the main storyline, director Baz Luhrmann completely followed Shakespeare's original work, whether it is from the original Shakespeare lines or the detailed description of the characters, the source can be found from the original work, but in While respecting Shakespeare's original works, Luhrmann is also very innovative and satirical. The long sword used by Romeo to kill Juliet's cousin and Paris was replaced with a pistol, and the handle was painted with the image of the Virgin. Whenever people When a crime begins, the camera will always cut across the statue of God on Verona Beach intentionally or unintentionally...God originally represents tolerance and love, but Luhrmann arranges so many bloody killings and statues of God to appear in consecutive shots, It also makes the film shrouded in a strong sense of tragedy from the beginning to the end."

"It is worth mentioning that William Bradley, who plays Paris, Romeo's rival in love, is the only actor who has a spark of passion with Leonardo, although his total appearances total about 10 minutes. At the end of the film When Romeo kills Paris, the eye-scene between the two of them is absolutely brilliant." - AO Scott, The New York Times

"From "Dancing Heroes" to "Romeo and Juliet Modern Version", Baz Luhrmann continued the shooting techniques in his debut novels: bright rhythm, bold soundtrack, absurd singing and dancing, confusing tones, exaggerated interpretation , as one of Shakespeare's rare works with extreme madness, extreme romance, and extreme enthusiasm, "Romeo and Juliet" unexpectedly matches Luhrmann's temperament."

"As for the actors, Leonardo DiCaprio is the most handsome and craziest Romeo ever, and Claire Danes deserves to be admired for her youthful beauty -- although the acting is a bit empty -- William Brand Leigh continued his usual handsome and overly handsome performance, even wearing a funny astronaut suit and dancing with Claire Dennis dressed up as an angel, and showing absurd expressions of coveting Juliet's beauty from time to time, this handsomeness did not fade away— —And, Jesus, it's only Bradley's second movie, and the acting has come a long way, and I'm sure if Bradley continues to do it again in the next two or three movies As good as he is handsome, the Oscar judges would love to see him play ugly to win." - Tom Schears, The Washington Post

"There are three eye scenes in the film that are very shocking. I have to mention that one is when Romeo kills Juliet's cousin incredulous, disillusioned, remorseful, and painful cry: 'I have been fooled by fate!'; The shock, madness, regret, and pleading eyes at the time of killing vividly show the mood from being killed by Romeo, to accepting fate, and hoping to be buried next to Juliet; one part is that Romeo drank the real poison, but found that Juliet did not. The eyes of amazement, awakening, helplessness, and love at the time of death."

"Baz Luhrmann used his unique light and shadow lens to shoot these three eye scenes beautifully and shockingly. The big screen lens captures the actor's facial expressions and the window of the soul, which cannot be possessed by the theater stage. Strengths. This film deserves three stars out of four." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, USA

Most of the film critics who watched the premiere in the United States made a positive evaluation of "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition", but some film critics expressed that they hated the film very much:

"Although "Romeo and Juliet" is a work with a rare madness in Shakespeare's works, Baz Luhrmann's adaptation is still too much, with impetuous scenes, weird camera transitions, and supporting actors with heavy makeup. Juliet's story is made into an extended version of the MTV musical, and the classic romance is completely gone." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"The shootout between the Capulet brothers and the Montague brothers at the beginning of the film is very funny, the scene is too abrupt, the old English dialogues of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are spoken in the modern city, and the song and dance music scenes always appear inexplicably, Baz Ruhe Mann just rote the story of Romeo and Juliet into the twentieth century, meaningless in terms of artistry and reinterpretation of Shakespeare's original work." -Mark Kermode, The Observer, UK

"Claire Danes performed well in Juliet's solo performance, and even had a girlish purity and beauty, but when she stood with Romeo, both her acting skills and her beauty were overshadowed. I don't know if Na Tali Portman takes over, and what about the Romeo and Juliet story—at least Portman is pretty good in "The Killer Is Not So Cold." —Boston Globe, USA

"A far cry from Italian director Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet." - New York Post, USA

""Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition" has subverted the original work, but the subversion is too much and it becomes ridiculous. The film is completely a Madonna Cicconi-style super-long music movie. The only bright spot is the cast. Choose.” — The Guardian, UK

Compared with the polarized attitudes of film critics and various newspapers and media, IMDB and other large film communities on the Internet have very extreme comments on "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition".

"The style of the movie is very modern, but it is too modern, so the Shakespeare-style lines and the lingering and affectionate passages like the original are put in without a little change, which seems to be too incompatible with the movie. It is very abrupt, shocking, and kind of The confusion of time and space. Speaking of which, since it is a modern version of the story of Romeo and Juliet, why not make the character of the protagonist a little more modern?"

"Romeo and Juliet with the best looks ever - sorry I haven't seen the drama - the mix of handsome and beautiful women is awesome!"

"The first half of the film has a slow rhythm, and the second half is like rushing to make the damned die quickly. The director needs to strengthen his grasp of the film's rhythm."

"Baz Luhrmann's style: 'GAY'!"

"What was that little pill that Romeo took before the Capulet's party? Was he on drugs?"

"In the last scene, Juliet's pain seems more like hysteria than Romeo's true feelings. The eye scene is not as good as the murdered Paris. Her face is crying, but her eyes are not. Or it is for this reason. , She only had a few more shots of covering her face, expressing her grief in a cover-up way, this design also makes people... don't know what to say."

"Baz Luhrmann's shots are so captivating, Leonardo's eyes are amazingly blue, William's green eyes make you dare not look straight for more than three seconds, or your heart will stop, and even Denise Those not-so-remarkable eyes are a beautiful olive green."

"Romeo is cool, Paris is so handsome, and Juliet is also very pure. If I were her, I would want both men—although Juliet is deeply in love with Romeo in the movie, but Claire Danes's performance made her I think she's actually swaying from side to side."

"The story is exactly the same as the original. The Shakespeare-style lines collide with the completely modern picture and soundtrack, which creates an extraordinary charm."

"Leonardo read Shakespeare's lines so beautifully! And William, his voice is so charming! God, these two rivals are so perfect, in the scene where Paris dies, I can't help it." Wanted to point at Romeo's nose and yell 'Forget about Juliet, it's better to die with Paris!'"

——It is worth mentioning that, a few years later, the movie "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition" has long been silent, but it became popular again due to unknown reasons. Every time William and Leonardo appear on the talk show I was ridiculed about this movie. The host of the famous late-night talk show "Jimmy Feather Show" even used a piece of Juliet's face to be PSed into a pornographic picture of William and Romeo embracing each other when the two were on the show separately. , as well as the more obscene self-made comics made by netizens who never tire of teasing, created the biggest highlight of this episode of the program.

From one star to four stars, three to nine points, and all kinds of polarized evaluations, it only caused fans to be more curious about "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition". If you are interested, you want to see it. Where, those who are not interested want to see how bad it is, so a week after its release, "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition" parachuted into the North American box office weekly champion with a box office of nearly 120 million—it was also because the film deliberately avoided Christmas. Due to the scheduled box office war—and, the box office fell by no more than 20% in the second week.

The two-week box office has recovered all the investment and distribution costs of the film, and it has been profitable since the third week. Whether it is topicality or commercial value, "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition" has met expectations. As for the artistry of the film, it will have to wait a few years After the opening of the major film festival award ceremonies, it was left to be verified.

But no matter what happens in "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition", it has little to do with William, because his role in this movie is second to Romeo's friend, at best he can be regarded as the third or fourth supporting actor, and he is really closely related to William , is "Scream" which will premiere in Los Angeles a month later, and that is the highlight of William's solo performance.

Unlike "Sense and Sensibility", although William is also the leading actor in "Sense and Sensibility", the film has bigger actors such as Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, and Ang Lee's directing skills are also profound. There are various reasons for the success of "Sense and Sensibility", and it is hard to say that William is the most credited; it is also different from "Romeo and Juliet Modern Edition". In this film, no matter how brilliant William is, he can only be a Supporting roles can be icing on the cake, but it is difficult to shake the true evaluation of the film by film critics and fans.

"Scream" has no big-name actors and directors, and the investment is medium. Although the theme is novel, the script is not perfect. The greater success of "Scream" shows that he does have the so-called A-list potential.

……

"Will, are you ready?" The director's assistant knocked on the door outside the dressing room.

William had just finished applying body lotion and was tying the belt of his white bathrobe when he heard a loud voice, "Get out now!"

Outside the dressing room, the director's assistant, makeup artist, and Danny Byrne stood side by side. The director's assistant asked a little puzzled: "Why doesn't Will want you to help prepare? That way the time will be faster, and now, Andrew Director Nicole is getting impatient with waiting."

There are a total of three cleaning scenes of the protagonist Vincent in "Gait Shot" - the so-called cleaning scene refers to cleaning the body under the camera, carefully shaving the hair with pomade, shaving, and scraping off everything on the body surface Hair, wiping off old dander, cutting nails, etc.—because these things can expose people’s true DNA, and the movie is set in a future world where genes dominate everything, and people with inferior genes can only be reduced to the bottom of society Existence, so the protagonist Vincent wants to disguise himself as Jerome and enter the Gedja Space Center, where only genetically superior elites are eligible to work, so he must carefully clean his body surface of everything that may expose his true genes.

The cleaning scene is very important because it is closely related to the theme of the movie. Director Andrew Nicol deliberately chose to shoot these three scenes in a week now, one month after the filming has officially started.

It was chosen one month after the filming started, so that William, who had already entered the shooting state, could better interpret Vincent’s different moods in the three cleaning scenes—although they were all cleaning scenes, but because of the background, the place where they happened, Due to the different timelines, these three scenes are very different, and whether William can perform this kind of complex level depends on how deeply he and Vincent are integrated into the role.

And one week of filming sounds quite long, after crossing out the first day, William and the director analyzed and figured out the character's state of mind, the audition on the second day, and the maintenance of the body on the third day - William's body hair is growing quite fast now After shaving and leaving it for two or three days, a layer of green stubble will form again, so if you want to shoot a lot of body shots, you need more professional hair removal, and you need to do a good job of smooth body maintenance after hair removal , otherwise the aesthetics will be lacking after entering the camera - if you start shooting on film on the fourth day, the time is actually quite rushed.

Danny Bourne rolled his eyes, pointed his right finger at the makeup artist: "You ask him."

The make-up artist coughed in embarrassment, and two blushes quickly appeared on his face.

The director's assistant's gaze became even more bewildered.

Danny Bourne explained: "Yesterday, the makeup artist was actually preparing Will, such as hair removal, oiling, moisturizing, etc., but he kept messing with Will, which annoyed Will, so he decided to You have to do it yourself."

"What a mess, I just tested the smoothness of the skin more, and carefully checked the skin color difference to see if I need to use foundation to balance the skin tone!" The makeup artist protested dissatisfied. He thought Danny Byrne described himself too much. Salty and wet.

"Your hands are almost reaching under Will's groin, aren't you called hands and feet?!" Danny Byrne shouted angrily.

The makeup artist was ashamed and embarrassed, and was about to say why she saved face for herself—by the way, she clarified in front of the director's assistant that she was actually an upright person, in case the other party listened to Danny Byrne's words and went back to complain to the director , the director opened him up, and he was about to cry—William finally opened the door and walked out of the dressing room.

"Oh Will you look absolutely stunning! Can you move the bathrobe a little away from your shoulders so I can see your chest? Don't worry I won't reach out—" the makeup artist changed the subject immediately, his voice excited They were all trembling, sharp and noisy, and raised their orchid fingers: "I can't see a single hair stubble! Will, you shaved so clean! The skin looks so smooth and elastic, without pores, and it's fair and soft. Meticulous, these muscles must feel good to the touch—"

William's exposed skin was covered with goosebumps at a speed visible to the naked eye. He quickly pulled the bathrobe tight and moved a step to the side to avoid the too hot gaze of the make-up artist.

Fortunately, the make-up artist really did what he said. He only talked but didn't do anything. He bit his own nails and asked strangely: "You can't see the pores? This is unscientific! Will, you sprayed yourself with stocking spray ?"

Stockings spray refers to a powdered body cosmetics, there are two types of canned spray and powder cream, [-] centimeters away from the body surface or wipe with a puff on the arms, chest, legs, can create a feeling like wearing It has a hazy, smooth, delicate, and even skin tone visual effect like stockings, just like applying foundation to the body.

Hollywood makeup artists generally like to use stocking spray on actors when they need to take close-up shots of body parts, or when models want to take print magazine photos, which can make the body skin look better-after all, most white people have large pores , Under close-up shots, even with a beautiful filter, it is difficult to cover up the rough skin, so it can only be compensated by means of makeup.

William shook his head: "Stocking spray? No, I just put on body lotion."

The makeup artist bit her nails harder, her heart was filled with envy, jealousy and the urge to touch her.

For the makeup artist who almost touched his sensitive area yesterday, William really kept a respectful distance, so when he knew that he had passed the preparation work, he immediately walked towards the shooting location.Danny Bourne and the director's assistant followed closely behind him.

Arriving at the shooting location, a place similar to a closed bathroom, but the bathroom door has a transparent glass to see the whole picture of the inside, William saw that the director Andrew Nicole was getting angry-not at him, but at a large group of people.

William walked a little closer, but Andrew Nicole didn't notice him. It was obvious that the other party was a little pissed off: "I never knew how to observe and learn when I was filming other scenes, so why did I clean it up when it came to cleaning scenes?" Are you here so together? Do you know how much it hinders the shooting? You! Blocked the light! You! Blocked the lens of camera No. 3! And you! The perfume is too heavy! The semi-enclosed studio has air circulation It's not good, you spray so much perfume to make everyone dizzy and unable to work?!"

Behind William, Danny Bourne and the director's assistant exchanged a tacit look, and they both understood what the other wanted to say: "I knew it was like this, and when it came to the cleaning scene, this group of people seemed to smell blood. The sharks surrounded him. '

——During the fitting, William's meticulous elite appearance with a combed back hair, a suit, leather shoes, shirt and tie really killed many straight women and curvy men in seconds, coupled with his good figure that cannot be concealed by daily clothes, I heard that a very large-scale cleaning scene will be filmed, and it is quite normal for both sexually interested and non-sexually interested people to join in the fun.

The crowd of onlookers quickly cleared up after Andrew Nicole's anger rushed to the sky.

Although I also wondered about the largest number of onlookers in history since "Gait Gatta" entered the official filming-are they all idle and have no work to do?It's not a scene that requires a competition of acting skills, and the camera is not too fancy. Why are people so interested in this scene? ——William, who had never thought about it at all, waited for the scene to disperse and almost only the staff were left. He untied the belt of the bathrobe very calmly, and walked into the glass-door bathroom to prepare his emotions and wait for the filming to start.

The two indoor cleaning scenes went very smoothly, and it took about a day and a half to finish filming. On the second afternoon, when the director’s assistant informed William again that everything was ready and waiting for him to enter the scene, William walked out of the RV , walked towards the beach—yes, this outdoor cleaning scene is at the beach, and it describes the first time Vincent spent the night outside after becoming Jerome (spent a good night with the heroine Irene), although I knew Irene probably I have seen through my disguise, but due to inertia, I still can't control myself. In the early morning, I ran to the beach to clean myself crazily, and continued to pretend to be another person.

But when he got to the beach, William was stunned. He saw the blue sea, the white sandy beach, the specially vacated shooting location, the director's film crew, and the dense crowd of human heads a few meters behind the director Anderson Nicol... …

William: "..." Director, can you get angry again?